Drive real changes to solve big problems, while learning a ton and having a clear career path
Pros
- Interesting, impactful work: There is rarely a boring day, much less a boring project. The problems we're solving are usually what's written in the WSJ about our client - big, complicated challenges, often challenges that are leading issues for that entire industry. And my clients regularly tell me (over many years now) that they would have missed huge opportunities or never driven the required changes successfully without our help. - Continuous learning curve: The people above you really want you to be successful and offer a ton of valuable coaching and feedback. You are constantly improving yourself. And those skills will be valuable no matter where you go - you get really good, for example, at separating what matters from what does not, or at making difficult changes happen in complex organizations. - Great people: You have incredibly smart and interesting collegues. Yet they're also collaborative, supportive, and relatively down to earth for folks with fancy degrees. - Smoothly-functioning meritocracy: There's so much less office politics and similar nonsense that you experience at so many companies, even well-regarded ones. At Bain the people who deserve to get promoted get promoted, you get more responsibility as soon as you're ready, most everyone gets along well with each other, and the pay and benefits are consistent and generally very good.
Cons
- Lifestyle can be challenging: First the positive - there is more scope to manage your lifestyle than many people think. Once I've gotten comfortable in a role at a given level in Bain, I've found I can create great results for clients in 50-55 hours a week. However, when you first join or when you are shifting to a role with more responsibility, it's probably more like 70 until you learn how to do it right. And you can never completely avoid the travel, the unpredictable client requests, checking email regularly even when not working, etc. Client service can be a tough business and despite a lot of effort and good intention Bain hasn't cracked that nut yet. If you really enjoy this job, though, you CAN make it work - it's possible if not always easy.
